By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
It’s almost time.
NFL Draft event organizers Saturday huddled on a sidewalk behind the giant High Roller observation wheel where the country’s richest sports league was preparing to turn open pavement into an NFL Woodstock and theme park near the busy Flamingo Road-Las Vegas Boulevard corner on the Strip.
The official player draft action begins Thursday and will run until Saturday, though event-related activities will be going on during the days leading to the event.
The NFL rules America’s sports landscape, commanding billion-dollar TV rights deals because NFL games draw about 15 million viewers per average regular season game, dwarfing the number of viewers for other sports leagues like the NBA at 3.9 million viewers per game, Major League Baseball at 2.1 million per game and the NHL at 1.3 million per game. Major League Soccer is about 1 million viewers a game, according to job career site zippia.com.
When it comes to revenues, the NFL leads the competition with $18 billion a year, with the goal of $25 billion annually for 2027.
The NFL events operations knows Las Vegas after staging the Pro Bowl all-star game at the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium two months ago and prepping for the Super Bowl in Las Vegas in February 2024.
Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft said the latest numbers in anticipated visitors for the NFL draft are 300,000-600,000.
The NFL Draft was not a big deal as a public event at one time. That has changed. The league now uses the event to amplify its brand and uses a very willing media to cover the concerts, football theme park and sponsor tents. At the same time, the NFL also restricts the media when it can conduct live video coverage.
This photo above shows the broadcast equipment trucks behind the “Draft Theater,” an airport hangar-looking structure extending to nearly Koval Lane east of the Strip. This temporary “theater,” as the NFL is calling it,” will contain the stage where the selected players will walk to receive their jersey and greet NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
The Draft Experience and NFL theme park activities are behind the High Roller and extend from the Caesars Forum convention center building over to the Westin off Flamingo Road.
Meanwhile, the players will walk a red carpet on a platform stage installed in the Bellagio Fountains.
Here’s a rendering showing an aerial overview of the scene behind the High Roller.
PSA